folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
Smoothie
I get one of those big industrial
blenders
and I start tossing in
pineapple
and yogurt
and honey
and the way I made you laugh that day
and when my son’s team clawed back a
win after being down 4-1
and when I got my food for free that
day
and when we sat in the rain for the
concert and didn’t care it was raining
and when I got the note saying they
were going to publish my book
and when my kids were born
and my movie collection
and all the sunsets
and all the sunrises
and all the full moons
and all the poems of Michael Dennis
and rollercoasters
and picnics in the park
and walks in the woods
and your dog playing fetch
and an eye of newt
and the kitchen sink
then oat milk to the top
I throw all of that into my blender
cram the lid on tight
and hit
liquify
the machine roars to life
and it glugs and sputters
chewing my liquid landscape of life
to smithereens
it Wizard-of-Oz tornado spins
colours and images
swirling people and places
blurring them together
it turns different colours
like a chameleon’s skin
it dances before me like disco lights
when I switch it off
it’s a light purple with rainbow
swirls
running through it like a fancy
lollipop
I pour it into a highball
and chug it back
it cools my throat like strong
peppermint
and I can taste the universe
God is on my tongue
I begin to levitate
until I’m lying on the ceiling
I do upside down yoga
and after I finish
well I’m ready to start my day
you know
breakfast
it’s the most important meal of the
day.
The Misery of Camping
The experts are with us
and they have all the magical gear
the axe
which is a flashlight
which is a personal floatation device
which is a flare gun
which is a compass
and it can fold up to the size of a
pen
who signs us up for camping?
the experts have some sort of unicorn
powder
they throw on the fire
and it turns the flames into rainbows
of colours
when you die alone
in a house with pets
they will soon eat you
cats will consume your head
I roast a vegan marshmallow
as blackflies and mosquitoes
suck and bite and eat my flesh
I am food.
What am I working on next? I continue to draw all the time, so there is that. And I’m always working on the next book of poetry but my main focus is a horror novel about a kind of vampire that lives and works in an old age home.
Christian McPherson is a poet, novelist, short story writer, and cartoonist/artist. He is the author of eleven books including, The Cube People, Saving Her, and My Life in Pictures. His newest book of poetry, his sixth, was released from At Bay Press in November of 2025 entitled Screaming Obscenities at the Sky. It contains 100 poems and over 400 drawings. Christian lives in Ottawa.